Mindscapes

I think to myself quietly, "I am a man." I hold this thought in my head for exactly two minutes and I ask, "Why? Why am I a man?" And in my silence, I watch the answer change. Not what or how or when. But why? What is it that makes me one? Is the fact that I was born one sufficient?

Question the most basic morsel of truth about yourself for two minutes and watch the answers change. Why am I alive? Why do I snore? Why do I love her? Why do I like colours? Why am I wicked? Why do I write? I ask myself all the whys. The same whys again and again. And I watch the answers change. Float in and out of the fringes of my conscious mind.

I listen to the world asking me the questions. Why did you do this? Why did you not do this? Why are you here? Why are you not on time? Why are you hungry now? Why are you not paying attention? Why did you write this? Why did you ask why? All different questions. And I see myself giving the answer. The same answer every time. I see the answers stick to a corporeal reality that binds them to worldly understanding.

And then I think, what if. What if my questions to myself become fluid and the answers stick to their slots? What if suddenly all the world asks me the same questions again and again, and my answers keep changing, making it impossible for me to answer anything.

Is it not fascinating how what is real and what is surreal merges at the horizon of imagination? Sometimes the questions are real and sometimes the answers are. But maybe what matters is neither the question nor the answer, but just the asking and the answering. And sometimes, just sometimes, it is the "just knowing" that matters.

So is it right to say that no matter what the question and no matter what the answer, I just know me. But do I really?